Re: please don\'t miss your order this early in the
 

I should hopefully be back up and running this evening. Because my old computer quit working, I bought a new one last night. Also, cable is supposed to be installed this afternoon at my new house, so I should not miss any more turns. I am delaying in all my other games, but those are PBEM and therefore not a problem. It is far easier to stale in TCP/IP, which is why I much prefer the PBEM method. I just don't have the time to always get my turns done on time, especially with my recent massive life changes and all. I do hope my RL settles down soon...

As for Tauren, he started college less than a month ago and has been very busy since then. I know he is behind on some of his other Dominion games. He likely staled because the email notification on this game does not seem to be working properly. I do know that he plans to cut back his Dominions games and was regretting his decision to enter this game because it was TCP/IP based. Until the notification system starts working, you can expect additional stales, as neither of us are used to TCP/IP games anymore.

I will be driving up to my son's school on Friday to visit him. On Saturday in his dorm room, I should be able to make my moves in all my Domionions games (except RAND) on his computer, but no guarantees on this.

I did warn everybody that there was no possible way I could make my moves until today, so no one should be surprised that I staled. I am glad to see that my pretender has only one death and is at the top of the HoF, so I obviously won that tough battle a turn ago. Of course, our team losing a turn to everybody will hurt.

I will let you all know on Sunday evening when I return home if Tauren and I will be able to continue this game or not. It really depends on just how busy he is at school. Heck, I have not even seen a post from him on this forum in weeks, which is highly unusual for him. Perhaps I can find a new partner (I bet Boron would be interested) if Tauren cannot continue.

I sure would appreciate ending the forced hosting from this game, though. I would also appreciate rolling back the latest turn, but I fully understand if no one wants to do that.

Re: please don\'t miss your order this early in the
 

Well, the reason that this game has forced hosting isn't because it is a TCP/IP game, but because I chose to make forced-hosting the policy. Perhaps that was a mistake.

I could certainly change the hosting policy so that we would delay in order to let people catch up.

I guess my first two preferences at this point are:

1. Restart the game (regenerating the fatherland file but keeping the pretenders), changing the policy so that people do not *have* to make their moves within the time limit on pain of losing their turn, or

2. Restart the whole game-setup process, starting with inviting five teams of two to join, and specifying that only players who want to play 48-hour quickhost with no exceptions should join this game.

I prefer option #1. If anybody strongly prefers option #2 (which may mean that Panther and Tauren will drop out), then please post about it here.

I'll give this issue a day or so to settle before I decide.

Re: please don\'t miss your order this early in the
 

My solution to all the problems is PBEM!

what do you like about PBEM?
 

I think that the issue of whether hosting is forced or not is separate from the issue of whether turns are transmitted by TCP or by e-mail.

I can easily restart the server and set it to not force hosting until everyone's turns are in. Also I can (perhaps less easily) fix the damn e-mail notification service.

If I did those two things, then the server would have all of the features that you desire from PBEM, right?

Regards,

Zooko the Host

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

Not really. TCP seems to be plagued with problems. PBEM is much more reliable.

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

Can you give me another example of a problem, besides the two known problems:

1. We had to re-upload our Pretenders upon restart (a problem now fixed since I have saved the Pretenders this time),
1. Forced-hosting has caused three players to miss their turns already (a problem that will be fixed by turning off forced-hosting), and
2. People are not receiving e-mail notifications of turns (although it worked at least once, it is currently broken).

If you have any other examples of problems in server operation I would like to know what they are in case I can thus fix them.

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

PBEM may be more reliable (and I for one agree that it seems to be), but it can be a pain for who-ever is incharge of the server for it.

I'm going on vacation for a week. ioticus, i've already sent you my password (pm - man). Do as you think best =)

Oh, and if everyone decides that starting over makes sense, you'll have to give me a week and a half: ie till next Saturday, to upload a pretender. Sorry =(

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

I believe that I can re-start the game without requiring anyone to upload a Pretender, since I made copies of the Pretenders. However, I've never done so before so I don't know if I did it right.

I'm kind of waiting to hear from Panther and Tauren before I decide whether to restart.

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

Hey, I did finally manage to get online late yesterday evening. I loaded Dominions on my new computer and even upgraded to V1.6. However, I was unable to find all the proper mods before I had to get some sleep.

One of the mods I was unable to find was pretender 2.01. Cainehill had attached this mod in this thread long ago, but that attachment was blank. I also found it posted by Cherry in the Zen mod thread, but that was a .rar file which I cannot currently read. I would appreciate if someone would attach this mod in a post here. Alternatively, I think that copying Pretender 2.0 as 2.01 works, and I may try that this evening.

As for the game, I have still to hear from my son about what he wants to do, but I will be seeing him tomorrow. If it turns out that he does not have time for this game, I could try to find a new partner.

Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

copying 2.0 as 2.01 works unless there are changes to your pretender in 2.01 which isn´t likely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif .